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Space Reform: What Mass Effect 2 Needs

We look back at Mass Effect, and think about what the future should bring.

Yesterday, Electronic Arts announced that it would be publishing Mass Effect 2 in early 2010 (apparently "Q4 2009" was fiscal, not calendar), and we here at GameSpy couldn't be happier about it. After all, the first game was one of the finest titles of 2007 (or 2008, if you're a PC gamer), and nearly everyone who played it was hoping for a sequel. Now that it's been made official, we figured it would be a great time to start thinking about what we'd like to see in Mass Effect 2, aside from more graphic "relations" between Commander Shepard and the ship's crewmembers. So, here's a look at what our Mass Effect-playing editors demand to see in the sequel.

A Little Back-Talk From the Locals

Gabe: As soon as I could leave the Citadel I was out among the stars, traveling from planet to planet exploring what each had to offer. Unfortunately, this was a terrible way to play Mass Effect and I quickly grew bored of the same-y surfaces, minimal unique content and monotonously mapped outposts. One of the things that I love to do, and one of the things that I felt had been promised by Mass Effect, is explore the environment when presented with a sprawling, more or less open-world design. In Fallout 3 I just struck out in a direction and took things as they came, but when I tried to do this with Mass Effect, I found that breaking out of the prescribed plot path meant that I had a whole lot of nothin' laying ahead.

In Mass Effect 2, I'm hoping to see a richer galaxy with more variety in both inhabitants and activities. As some of the comments on yesterday's news story point out, NPCs outside of the Citadel don't offer much in the way of conversation. Sure, sure, we're a long way from the classic Final Fantasy "talk to everyone in town" dynamics, but I'd still like there to be someone with something to say out in the big black... even if it is some random dancer NPC spouting, "Hey, don't I have great legs?"

Honestly, I found that commenter "discardedcheese" had one of the best suggestions: "It would be nice if you could create something with the raw materials you gather. Or something like that to add an incentive to collecting." Amen to that, my friend, let's get some crafting up in this piece to make exploration worthwhile and lucrative!